The inventive concept relates to semiconductor memory devices, and more particularly, to methods of operating nonvolatile memory devices.
Semiconductor memory devices may be classified as volatile or nonvolatile according to their data retention capabilities. Volatile memory devices lose stored data in the absence of applied power, while nonvolatile memory devices retain stored data in the absence of applied power.
Nonvolatile memory devices have become mainstay components in contemporary digital systems and consumer electronics. Nonvolatile memory devices may be programmed using a variety of methods. Certain programming operations (and corresponding read operations) recognize the benefits of maintaining a substantially randomized pattern of stored data in a memory cell array. This is particularly true for memory cell arrays including multi-level memory cells (MLC), and for large, three dimensional (3D) memory cell arrays.